After finishing Birmingham Tech Week last week I definitely have the BTW blues. I had an absolute blast! Racing around the City listening to all our tech experts (and there were a lot at 150) or looking at the latest tech innovations at our tech showcase. There was a real buzz of excitement and genuine collaboration.
Birmingham Tech was founded on its core principles “Celebrate. Collaborate. Inspire”. Well this has certainly been a year that has seen collaboration far beyond our imaginations and inspired many to make changes and create impact, all of which we celebrated during one amazing week.
For Birmingham, Tech is really important. The latest reports for Tech Nation show tech companies in the West Midlands are on track to raise more venture capital investment in 2021 than they did a year earlier, and tech job vacancies advertised in the region have almost doubled since December 2020.
That means Birmingham could add a whopping £2.7 billion to the economy by 2025 along with the creation of 52,000 new roles in tech. These stats alone are pretty impressive and I think it’s more than doable especially with the high startup rates. We just need to make sure the startups are supported and are able to grow and scale sustainably.
An explosion in tech jobs
As the UK starts to recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the digital economy in the West Midlands is enjoying a growth spurt. Analysis by Tech Nation shows Birmingham is the second top ranked city for cost of living versus salary for tech roles, with these roles making up 22% of all job openings in 2020 – growth of 17% from 2018.
Gurjit Jagpal, Managing Director and head of the Birmingham office at Goldman Sachs – one of the week’s sponsors, said:
“Goldman Sachs is expanding in Birmingham because of the city’s deep pool of talent, strong academic institutions and growing eco-system for finance and technology. We were delighted to be a part of Birmingham Tech Week and look forward to continuing our involvement in the innovation happening across the city and wider region”.
